---- Chapter 16 Jeremy Glass POV: Joselin' s smile froze on her face. The color drained from her cheeks, leaving her skin a pasty, sickly white. "What... what are you talking about?" she stammered, her eyes darting around the room as if looking for an escape. | strode to her bedside, my shadow falling over her. | leaned down, my face inches from hers, my voice a low, venomous hiss. "Don' t lie to me. Not anymore. | know you paid the doctor. | know you faked the ultrasound dates. | know | was in Singapore ten weeks ago. So |' Il ask you one more time. Whose. Baby. Is it?" Tears welled in her eyes, the familiar, manipulative performance starting up again. "It' s yours, Jeremy! | swear it' s yours! | would never..." "And | suppose you never paid Gus to loosen his grip on the Doberman?" | interrupted, my voice dripping with ice. "And you never hired a man with a gold tooth to torture the woman who was supposed to be your sister? And you never, ever met with my father to sign a contract to replace her while she was lying helpless in a hospital bed?" Her face went from pale to ashen. The tears stopped. Her ---- expression, for the first time, was one of pure, unadulterated terror. She knew. She knew | had found out everything. She scrambled to the edge of the bed, her hands reaching for me. "Jeremy, please, | can explain..." "Get away from me," | snarled, recoiling as if her touch would burn me. "The thought of you, of what | let you do, makes me physically sick." | turned to leave, unable to stand the sight of her for another second. "Don' t leave me!" she shrieked, launching herself from the bed and grabbing my leg, her fingers digging into my calf like claws. "Please, Jeremy! | did it all for you! | love you!" Her words were so twisted, so warped, they were almost laughable. Love. She didn' t know the meaning of the word. "I Il get rid of it' she sobbed, her voice muffled against my pants. "I' Il get rid of the baby. We can start over. Just you and me. No one has to know." | looked down at the pathetic, weeping woman clinging to my leg. This was the creature | had chosen over Haylie. This was the empty, venomous shell | had mistaken for a woman. | had thrown away a diamond for a shard of broken glass. With a final, decisive movement, | pried her fingers from my leg, one by one. | stepped back, leaving her crumpled on the floor. ---- "It's over, Joselin," | said, my voice flat and dead. "Everything is over." | walked out of the room, leaving her sobbing behind me. | didn' t look back. My mind was a maelstrom of horror and self-loathing. Every cruel word | had said to Haylie, every time | had defended Joselin, every time | had dismissed Haylie' s pain-it all came rushing back, each memory a fresh lash of the whip. | had to get to her. | had to tell her. | had to beg for her forgiveness, even though | knew, with a certainty that settled deep in my bones, that | would never, ever receive it. | drove like a man possessed, the miles flying by in a blur. When | arrived at the Meyers estate, | didn't bother with the gate. | simply drove my car through it, the sound of crunching metal a fitting soundtrack to the destruction of my life. | burst through the front door of the house. A startled maid screamed. | ignored her, taking the stairs two at a time, my heart pounding a frantic rhythm against my ribs. | threw open the door to the master bedroom. And there she was. Haylie was sitting in a chair by the window, reading a book. The afternoon sun streamed in, catching the gold in her hair, making her look like an angel. An angel | had dragged through hell. ---- She looked up, her expression calm, her eyes showing no surprise, as if she had been expecting me. And behind her, in the large hospital bed, a man was stirring. His eyes, a startling, intelligent blue, were open. They were fixed on Haylie. Elliot Meyers was awake.